Blackstone Amps from the UK

[Guest HRB853370]

Was checking these out at my LMS today. I did not have time to test drive one, but they seem to be well engineered, from the UK. Mark or Peter, do you have any experience with them?

[jjkrause84]

Do you mean Blackstar?

[mark555]

I take it that by Mark or Peter you mean myself and Pete Green? If so, I will tell you what I know.

 

I have played one once, they are pretty good amps, competing with Orange in their price arena. British Amps seem to lean in the same direction, and I think the Blackstar is of that genre. If you are interested in the classic British valve sound, you would not be disppointed.

 

If you want what I believe is the best British amp on the market, you really ought to be looking at Matamp, strange name, I know, but these amps are the cream of the crop, and will match any boutique amp twice their price. They are completely hand build and point to point wired, no flow soldering here at all.

[H]

The Artisan range is hand-wired deliciousness in a wooden box I've also had the Series One 45 up to 10 in my local music shop a couple of times and very nice it was too. My favourite is the Artisan 30.

 

The ISF feature is a progressive Fender to Marshall tone-shaper that's well worth a look.

 

Finally, Blackstar have a YouTube channel which goes into good detail on the sounds and features available.

[peteraltongreen]

Was checking these out at my LMS today. I did not have time to test drive one, but they seem to be well engineered, from the UK. Mark or Peter, do you have any experience with them?

Hi there,

Yes,I do have some experience with these excellent amplifiers.My local shop stocks them, ( www.antonesguitars.com ) and they are show on their website.The U.K. website is www.blackstaramps.co.uk.This will give you all the technical stuff & pictures.Basically,they are British designed amplifiers,constructed to a very high standard in Korea.

In use,they are very good on sound.The regular series are modern sounding amps,with wide tone ranges,and various power outputs to suit the various musician's jobs.The Artisan series are very similar to the old Vox amps ( Artisan 15 ),and the 30 is more like a Marshall Bluesbreaker.I would urge you to take your axe down to your local supplier,and plug in !

If you are looking for a small practice cum studio amp,the HT5 is superb.This is my favourite little amp.All tube,and LOUD !

Don't miss out on these great amps.If I can help you further,please don't hesitate to ask.

Peter Alton Green.

[jjkrause84]

The Artisan series has always interested me (especially the idea of having a 1974x adn an AC15 in the same box!) but I haven't had a chance to play one yet...one day, one day.....

[sanddancer]

hi just to say that I'm a UK resident and have'nt tried out the Blackstone amps, but the guitar mags seem to give them good reviews. I also use a Matamp, they are made in the north of England not too far from where I live. I ues a C7 which is a single-ended amp with switchable valves and for only 7 watts is loud and you simply dial in a range of tones. I also use a Vox Nightrain head to give a range from 7 to 15 watts and a whole range of clean tones. I'm very happy with this set up and its a fantastic range of tones which I use for slide guitar, cheers jim (county Durham).

[jjkrause84]

I test drove (and then bought!) a second-hand Artisan 15 yesterday....phenomenal amp. Beautiful, rich, thick-yet-sparkly cleans; tons of lovely gain on the EF86 channel and a shocking amount of headroom for a 15 watt amp (on the 'clean' 12AX7 channel I could get it up to something like half-way or more before it broke up with my Tele!).

 

I found the amp to be very quiet (I'm blaming the Greenback...). I really can't crank my AC15 (w/ G12H30) in a small room because it physically shakes me; I could crank the Artisan while sitting right next to it quite comfortably. Still, that's a problem easily dealt with. In the end, I'm very pleased and HIGHLY recommend it!

[JeffB]

I like the Series One and Artisan range not so fond of the HT series. Some irony in that as I use the HT-Dual pedal in front of my Fender to turn it into a three channel amp with some modern gain. The HT series of amps according to the literature is based off the HT Dual pedal. This combination of pedal and Fender amp has a clarity and class of sound that the Blackstar HT series amp cant cop. Having said that I still think the HT_dual pedal is a bit fizzy and some how you can hear the pedals circuit through the sound? Same feeling I get when I play through an HT series amp.

To A/B the HT60 against my 60w fender with the HT Dual in front and though the same speaker reveals the cheapness of the HT60.

But its lighter and cheaper so it wins on that front. Probably good value for money.

I directly compared the Series One against Marshall JVM, Egnater Tourmaster.

The Series one and JVM both had wobbly controls(pots wired straight to the board I think) and fizz that I didnt like on the gain channels. Just not the sound I was looking for anyway.

I dont think much of the HT clean channel even though I dont use a real clean sound myself. But the cheap feel of the pots turned me off regardless of the sound.

People seem to be really liking the HT series so what I think about them means little and I may have a naff version of what a good sound is anyway. One of those things you have to play and form your own opinions.

I cant think of too much to complain about the Artisan range.

[TalismanRich]

Last night I was browsing around Blvd Music in Spartanburg SC. He had an HT Studio 20 that had low time. It looked mint, no tears or anything. I played around a bit with it. Had to use a LP with Burstbuckers. There wasnt anything with Seth Lovers around that I could try, but since I don't know how a BB compares to the SL in terms of drive it was hard to make a solid judgement.

 

I didn't think the clean channel was bad. It didn't break up much even with the guitar wide open and the channel almost dimed and the master volume down. The overdrive channel was pretty strong once you hit about 11:00 on the gain dial. I never really could tell what the ISF knob was doing. Maybe because I was on the clean channel mostly. I think the ISF is only for the gain channel. Its supposed to modify the tone stack between American and British.

 

Getting close to closing time, I told the owner I wanted to do a bit of research and might come back. I was wondering what it was that was "great" about the Blackstar. Not that it was bad, it just didn't find that spot for me.

 

So at this point, I think I'll give this one a pass. I've been looking at some of the Fender style clones these days (Allen Old Flame or Accomplice or something similar). I might consider one of these.

[rjsanders]

i read Guitarist every month & Blackstar is unavoidable. but i wish they'd do more on Matamp...